Overruled

by Hank Davis

  Kallimer would wait to see whether The Messire approved.

  Joyce looked down at the crowd. Scarlet, gold, and azure blue struck his eyes from the family boxes. He saw the flash of light on rings and earrings, the soft, warm color of the ladies’ wimples.

  The people were a dun mass, dressed in the dark, subdued colors they had been affecting lately. Joyce reflected that, without their contrast, the family members might not appear so brilliant in their boxes. But that was only a hasty digression, fluttering across his mind like an uneasy bird at sunset.

  He understood from Blanding that the people had some unusual interest in this trial. Looking down he could see the crowd was large.

  Joyce plainly heard Blanding draw breath before he began to speak. When he did, he spoke slowly, and the acoustic amplifiers inside the stone bench made his voice grave and sonorous.

  “People of Nyack—”

  The crowd became absolutely still, all of them watching the straight, motionless black figure standing above them.

  This was justice, Joyce thought as he always did when a trial began, the mood slipping over him. This was the personification of the ideal. The straight, unbending figure; the grave voice.

  “The Nyack Court of Common Justice, of Sovereign New York, is now in Session.”

  He disliked Blanding, Joyce reflected, watching the Associate half-turn and extend an arm toward him. He disliked Pedersen, and Kallimer made him uneasy. But they were together in this. This was above personality, and above humanity. The Messire, the four of them, the families and the people; together, what they did here today was their bond and heritage. This was their bulwark against savagery.

  Blanding had held the gesture just long enough. “Mr. Justice Joyce, Chief Justice of Sovereign New York, Presiding.”

  There was a burst of excited applause from the families. They’d expected him to preside at a trial of this nature, of course, but they were excited now, nevertheless. This was the official stamp. This was the recognition of their importance, and of the importance of this case. Joyce bowed his head in acknowledgment.

  “Mr. Justice Kallimer, Chief Associate Justice.”

  Joyce noted that Kallimer’s applause was much more sparse. But then, he had almost no reputation here. He’d originally come from Waverly, which was far across the nation at the Pennsylvania border. He’d been noticed by the Bar Association, but until he’d presided at some trials in the Hudson area, very few people would recognize his name.

  “Mr. Justice Pedersen, Recording Justice.”

  Pedersen drew a better hand than Kallimer. That was because he was a New York City judge.

  Joyce did not permit his thin smile to touch his face. For all of that, it was Kallimer who would succeed him, even if Pedersen had stayed on the bench. Kallimer was not a crowd-pleaser, but he had been efficient in Waverly, and he could be efficient here, too, if he had to.

  Joyce waited for the proper amount of expectant silence to accumulate. Then he raised his head.

  “Let trial begin.”

  There was a fresh burst of applause. When it subsided, he turned to Blanding. “Justice Blanding will state the case.” Joyce’s tone, too, was deep and majestic. Part of that was the amplifiers, doing their invisible work within the bench, but part of it was in him, and he found himself submerging in the mood of the trial, his back stiffening and his ankles taking his full weight. His head was erect, and he felt his slow pulse moving regularly through his veins, beating with the gratification of the act of trial.

  Blanding looked down at the Accused’s box.

  “The case of John Doe in complaint against Clarissa Jones. The concurrent case of the People of Sovereign New York against Clarissa Jones.”

  Joyce could now look at the Accused. She was obviously in proper control of herself, gripping the railing before her with tight hands. Then he turned toward Pedersen.

  “Justice Pedersen, what has been the progress of this case?”

  “Mr. Justice, the complaint of John Doe has been withdrawn in cognizance of the superior claim of the People.”

  That was ritual, too. Once the attention of Justice had been drawn to the crime, the original complainant withdrew. Otherwise, the name of the complaining family member would have had to be revealed in open court.

  Joyce turned back toward Blanding.

  “Justice Blanding will proceed with the statement of the People’s case.”

  Blanding paused for another breath. “We, the People of Sovereign New York, accuse Clarissa Jones of attempting to usurp a place not her own; of deliberately and maliciously using the wiles of her sex to claim recognition from a member of a family, said family member being of minor age and hereinafter designated as ‘John Doe.’ We further accuse Clarissa Jones, People’s woman, of fomenting anarchy—”

  The indictment continued. Joyce watched the Accused’s face, noting that despite her emotional strain, she at least retained sufficient propriety not to interrupt with useless exclamations or gestures. The girl had some steel in her, somewhere. He was pleased at her restraint; interruptions destroyed the rhythm of Trial. She’d have her chance to appeal.

  He turned to Pedersen with an inquiring lift of his eyebrows. Pedersen moved closer, keeping his mouth carefully out of the pickup area.

  “The girl was young Normandy’s mistress. He’s got a summer lodge on the river, here,” he whispered.

  “Joshua Normandy’s boy?” Joyce asked in some surprise.

  “That’s right.” Pedersen grimaced. “He might have been more astute, and investigated her a little. She’s got a number of relatives in the local craft guilds and whatnot.”

  Joyce frowned. “Illegitimate relationships don’t mean anything.”

  Pedersen shrugged the shoulder away from the crowd. “Legally, no. But in practice the People have taken to recognizing these things among themselves. I understand their couples refer to each other as husband and wife when among groups of their own kind. I know that’s of no weight in court,” he went on hastily, “but the girl’s apparently an aristocrat among them. It could be natural for her to assume certain privileges. Normandy’s specific complaint was that she came up to him on a public street and addressed him by his first name. Well, there she was going a little too far.”

  Pedersen hooked his mouth into a knowing smile.

  “Yes,” Joyce answered sharply, his cheeks flattening with rage, as he looked down at the Accused. “She was.”

  * * *

  The youngsters didn’t yet understand. They could smile at it. Joyce couldn’t. The fact that this was just a thoughtless girl in love made no difference. What had to be judged here was the legal situation, not the human emotions involved.

  Centuries ago, The Messire had established this society, speaking through His prophets, and it was that society which Joyce defended here, just as hundreds of Justices defended it every day throughout the land.

  There were those worthy of marriage, and those who were not. Those with the mental capacity to rule, administer, judge, and choose the sick to be healed, and those without it. The notion had long ago been exploded that all human beings were equal.

  The blunt facts of life were that talent and mental capacity were hereditary. Some human beings were better equipped than others to judge what was best for the human race as a whole, but, with unrestricted marriage, these superior qualities were in grave danger of dilution.

  To have attempted to breed the ordinary people out of existence would have been impossible. The sea is not dried up with blotting paper. But the building of dikes was possible.

  Out of the rubble and flame of the Twenty-first Century, The Messire had handed down the answer, and the Law. The Law was the dike that penned the sea of ordinary people away from the wellsprings of the families.

  Through His prophets, The Messire had ordained his First Families, and they, in turn, had chosen others. To all of these were given the sacrament of marriage and the heritage of name and property for their children.
For centuries, the families had been preserved, their members choosing wives and husbands only out of their own kind.

  It was unnecessary to enforce childlessness on the remaining people. Neither superior intelligence nor talent were required for the world’s routine work.

  Nor had “enforcement,” as such, of The Messire’s Law been required for many years, now. It was not that the people were impious or heretical. Rather it was that, being human, they were prone to error. In their untutored minds, the purpose and meaning of the Law sometimes became unclear.

  Despite that simple piety, if young Normandy had been even more of a fool, and let the incident pass, some members of the people might mistakenly have felt such behavior was permissible. The precedent would have been established. If, after that, some other error had been allowed to go uncorrected, yet another step away from the Law might be taken. And after that, another—

  Anarchy. And the widening erosion in the dike.

  Joyce scowled down at the Accused. He only wished it hadn’t been a girl.

  Blanding reached the end of his indictment and paused, with a gesture to Joyce.

  Joyce looked down at the Accused again, partly because he wished to study her again and partly because it lent weight to his opinion.

  The girl’s trembling confirmed his previous tentative decision. There was no purpose in dragging this on. The quickest conclusion was the best.

  “Thank you, Justice,” he said to Blanding. He addressed the Accused.

  “Young woman, we have heard your indictment. Justice Blanding will now repeat the etiquette of Trial, in order that there may be no doubt in your mind of your rights.”

  “The Messire is your judge,” Blanding told her gravely. “The verdict we deliver here is not conclusive. If you wish to appeal, make your appeal to Him.”

  There was a stir and rustle in the crowd, as there always was. Joyce saw a number of people touch the images at their throats.

  “We shall deliberate on this verdict, each separately determining the degree of your guilt. When we have reached a verdict, our separate opinions shall determine the degree of mundane appeal granted you.”

  Joyce threw a quick glance at the girl. She was looking up at Blanding with her hands on the rail of her box, her arms stiffly extended.

  “If your case has been misrepresented to this Court, The Messire will intervene in your behalf. If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear.”

  Having completed the recital, he stopped and looked out over the heads of the crowd.

  Joyce stepped back, and saw that Kallimer and Pedersen were looking down at his hands, hidden from the crowd. He signaled for a verdict of “Completely Guilty.” Giving the girl a weapon to defend herself would be ridiculous. If she succeeded in firing at all, she was sure to miss him and injure someone in the crowd. It was best to get this case out of the way quickly and efficiently. The thing had to be squashed right here.

  To his surprise, he saw Kallimer signal back “reconsider.”

  Joyce looked at the Associate. He might have expected something of the sort from Blanding, but a man of Kallimer’s intelligence should have arrived at the proper conclusion.

  Perhaps the Bar Association had been very wise to give him this trial, instead of letting some lesser Justice handle it. He’d had his doubts, but this wiped them out.

  Without looking at Kallimer, but letting him plainly see the angry swell of the set jaw muscle that tightened his cheek, Joyce signaled “imperative!”

  Kallimer sighed inaudibly, and his “acquiesce” was limp-fingered, as though he were trying to convey resignation, as well.

  Joyce faced front, still furious, but with his voice under control.

  “Justice Blanding, have you reached a verdict?” He moved his left shoulder slightly.

  Blanding, from his position on the rostrum, turned and saw the signal.

  “I find the Accused completely guilty, Mr. Justice,” he said.

  Joyce turned to Pedersen in the absolute silence that always fell over a plaza during the rendering of the verdict.

  “Completely guilty, Mr. Justice.”

  Joyce turned to Kallimer.

  The man’s lips twitched in a faint, sardonic smile. “Completely guilty, Mr. Justice.”

  Joyce looked down at the Accused. “I also find you completely guilty as charged,” he said. “You will not be allowed a weapon with which to make mundane appeal. Your only recourse is to The Messire’s mercy. I pray that our verdict is correct.”

  He stepped back to a new outburst of applause from the family boxes, satisfied that he had done his best. So far, it was a good trial. Even Kallimer’s rebelliousness had been evident only here on the bench. The majesty and unanimity of justice had been preserved as far as the crowd could tell.

  He turned and walked slowly down the platform steps, through the deep hush that locked the plaza.

  * * *

  It had been a good trial. The Bar Association would detail it and its significance in the Closed Archives, and, generations from now, the older Justices would be reading about it, seeing how his action today had choked off the incipient attack on this culture and this civilization.

  But that was not uppermost in Joyce’s mind. What men a hundred years from now would say could not have much personal significance to him. What made his pulse beat more and more strongly as he descended the steps, turned the corner of the bench, and walked out into the plaza, was the knowledge that his contemporaries—the other Justices of the Bar Association—the men who had also come to the top, and who understood what the burden was—would know he had not failed the ideal.

  He stopped just short of the Ground of Trial and gestured to the attendants around the Accused. They removed the Accused’s clothing to guard against armor or concealed weapons, and stepped aside.

  Joyce took the final stride that placed him on the Justice’s Square, where other amplifiers once more took up his voice.

  “The Accused will come forward to make her appeal.”

  The girl stumbled a bit coming out of the box, and he heard a slight sound of disappointment form the family boxes. It was not a good Entrance. But that could be forgotten.

  He reached down, and the gun slipped out of its holster in one smooth sweep of his arm that was pure line of motion as he simultaneously half-turned, his vest standing out in a perfect straight-up-and-down cylindrical fall from his neck to its hem. He came up slightly on his toes, and there was a scattering of “bravo!” from the family boxes as well as the more reserved “excellent” which was really all a lame man deserved for his draw, no matter how perfect his arm motion.

  The Accused was standing, pale of face, in the Square of Appeal.

  Holding his draw, Joyce waited to speak the ultimate sentence.

  He was growing old. The number of trials remaining to him was low. Someday soon, on a verdict of “probably guilty,” perhaps, when the Accused had a fully loaded weapon, The Messire would reverse the verdict.

  Not because of his physical slowness. The lameness and hitch in the draw would be merely symptomatic of his advancing slowness of mind. He would not have interpreted the case correctly.

  He knew that, expected it, and felt only acceptance for it. A Justice who rendered an incorrect verdict deserved the penalty just as much as a guilty member of the people.

  Meanwhile, this was the upheld ideal.

  “You have been adjudged completely guilty as charged,” he said, listening to the old words roll out over the plaza. “You have not been granted pardon by this Court. Make your appeal to The Messire.”

  The Accused looked at him wide-eyed out of her pallor. There was no certainty she was praying, but Joyce presumed she was.

  Justice rested in The Messire. He knew the guilty and the innocent; punished the one and protected the other. Joyce was only His instrument, and Trial was only the opportunity for His judgment to become apparent. Men could judge each other, and pass sentence. But men could be wise or foolish in their
decisions. That was the fallible nature of Man.

  Here was where the test came; here where the Accused prayed to The Messire for the ultimate, infallible judgment. This was Trial.

  His finger tightened on the trigger while his arm came slowly down and forward. This, too, was where Joyce prayed to the Ultimate Judge, asking whether he had done wisely, whether he had once more done well. Each trial was his Trial, too. This was his contact with The Messire. This was Truth.

  * * *

  Something whirled out of the silent crowd of people and landed at the girl’s feet. It was a gun, and the girl scrambled for it.

  As soon as she picked it up, Joyce knew he’d lost his advantage. His reflexes were too slow, and he’d lost two decisive seconds by stopping, paralyzed, and staring at it.

  He shook his head to clear away the momentary shock. He gave up paying attention to the confused noise and blind milling of the crowd. He narrowed his concentration down to the girl and her gun. As far as he could permit himself to be concerned, he and she were alone in a private universe, each trying to overcome panic long enough to act.

  He’d lost his aim, and his arm had dropped below the line of fire. He brought it up, deliberately slowing his impulse to fling it into position. If he missed, the odds would be all against a second shot.

  It was a better aim than the conventional method, in any case. It permitted no elaboration; it had no grace or beauty, but it was a steadier method of aiming.

  Her shot struck his forearm, and his hand slapped up into the air from the shock. His fingers almost lost their grip on the butt, and he clenched them convulsively.

  The girl was tugging at her weapon, doing something with the buttplate.